^ by F Letter.

Here are some envelopes I made today for a swap - there are 6 envelopes in total, which all fit inside one another and the tiny last one contains a handful of cute stickers. Kind of like pass the parcel, or Babushka dolls.

First you open up Mario Lanza's big face, made from an old record cover;


Then out pops a cat (from a page of a calendar);


And then a strange photograph I found which I can't quite make out, stuck to an envelope;


Followed by;


Inside of which is (a page from a children's book);


And lastly (a comic book page);


The point is that you send as many envelopes as you can make that fit inside one another, and the recipient should be able to then use the envelopes. Obviously some aren't practical for the post, but hopefully can still be used for something. They're all a bit rough and I'll probably fix 'em up before I send them. I thought it was a very cute idea for a swap.

We had our small house rewarming gathering last night which was very pleasant, a lovely assortment of people. I was having this really cool dream this morning about going to America, and then my mum woke us up exclaiming; "Bianca, it's already 10 o'clock!", to which I replied, "...um, so?". Apparently that's ridiculously late to wake up on a Sunday. I was like "Jees! Old people!". She liked that. Of course that's an entirely reasonable time to wake up, but what is stopping me from staying up until 4am every night when I have no responsibilities the following day? That's what I'm trying to figure out...


^ Speaking of dreams. Have YOU ever dreamed of This Man? Apparently "every night throughout the world hundreds of people dream about this face". The website attached to the face seems awfully ridiculous and hoax like to me, but I guess it could be true. C said he was trying to picture the face before he went to sleep last night in order to dream about him, haha.

I am swooning over this letter set at the moment (and all of the other stationery) from We've Got Paper, who is doing a giveaway on her blog currently. In the likely event that I don't win them, I don't think I'll be able to help myself but to purchase them (thanks for the heads up Missive Maven :P);



Tomorrow I must:

• Call my grandma.
• Assemble appropriate 'interview outfit' for Wednesday.
  
• Go to the doctors.
• Post mail.
• Tidy desk.
• Not sleep until noon.
  
  

^ Moustache sisters.

You know you've been on the internet too long when you begin to clean up your very messy desk and go to put something in the bin and in your head you say the word 'delete'.

Today was 'World Post Day' and I received some lovely mail-tag mail from my friend Paige. Here's the envelope it all came in;





She sent me a huge bundle of postcards, some ad cards with interesting designs, some cute cat postcards and other things. Here are some of my favourites;















Speaking of cats... tonight on the way home from Aldi, C and I spotted the most gorgeous little cat who followed us about three blocks home. He was so ridiculously cuddly and purry and smoochy and thus we named him Smooch. It was hard not to want to take him home, but eventually he wearily half-way crossed the road to our block and then headed back to wherever he came from. Later on C and I decided to go back up our street and look for 'Smooch' in order to cat-nap him (evil I know). We decided we could just borrow him for a night, but as soon as walked up to where we had initially found him, it started to pour and we had to hide under a tree in front of someone's yard for five minutes with C covering me with his jumper until the rain eased off. We never found Smooch again in order to cat-nap him. It's probably for the best.

I want all of these amazing tattoo stockings/socks, from here. They're are meant to mimic the colour of your skin and give the illusion of a tattoo.




Today my sister, C and I ventured to the (dreaded) mall to look at transferring my Hiptop phone plan to her name. As it turned out, she has no ID and is under eighteen and so none of that was happening with Telstra, so I ended up giving her the phone and changing the billing address and she'll hopefully keep my name out of any debt! She kind of earns more than I do, so I think she's definitely more likely to pay the thing on time. We did a swap, so I've reverted from a phone with a million uses to one that sends and receives texts and calls and that's all! It's kind of refreshing. That phone was never for me. Now she has my old number and I have a new number and I'm missing that stupid bit of technology, but I know it's with somebody who will put it to better use! I will miss you Hiptop with your blinking blue lights and unlimited texting abilities. Wahh.

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

^ One of my favourite artists and zinesters, Mel Stringer, launched her new website today.

Song of the day: Now, Now - St. Vincent.
Word of the day: Cyclopean - of or suggestive of cyclops; one-eyed.
Quote of the day: "Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do" - Edgar Degas.

I've been reading over old Livejournal posts from when I was 15. They make me laugh and cringe and they all begin with my 'of the day's so I thought I'd try it out for old times' sake.

My friend Doug came to deliver his latest mail-tag letter this evening and then kindly drove C to work. We live less than one minute away from one another so our correspondence is usually hand delivered and not posted. Funnily enough we both grew up in Stroud, both had the same surname through school (Allen) and then both moved to Islington this year. He responds to my mail within about two days of receiving it and it's always filled with his dark humour and fluorescent pens. I also requested "5 redskins" and he sent me a crunchie bar both of which I am now devouring and feeling ill. Here is the awesome envelope he made me;





Here is a Postcrossing postcard I received today from Germany. I think it's gorgeous;


Meanwhile, I'm awing over rubber stamps on Etsy;



+ + + + + + + + +

Yesterday for the first time in a long time I got absolutely no mail! I think I've been taking it all for granted. I have a big pile of addressed postcards ready to be stamped and sent, so I should get them in the mail tomorrow and perhaps then the mail fairies will return.

I read this article today titled; "5 Uses For Chalkboard Paint You Haven't Considered" and it has got me thinking about all of the things I could turn into chalkboards (my mailbox perhaps?) and I'm thinking of testing this how-to recipe for making your own chalkboard paint.

I also discovered the wonderful world of regrETSY today.

Today we got our massively inflated phone/internet bill and C started trying to write one of his politics essays for uni and kept saying "we're doomed..." and going off on emotional political rants and looking like he was going to cry. So he suggested that we forget about all of that and catch a bus across town to see 500 Days Of Summer. Eventually we realised there was only one screening on, there are no buses back to Islington after 11pm, cabs are too expensive, hitching is too risky and walking 8.3km in the cold, windy and potentially rainy weather in the middle of the night didn't sound fun. There are lots of reasons why not having a car is awesome, but sometimes, it could make things slightly easier. Then C's work called and he begrudgingly said yes and then we both felt worse and lay on the couch for half an hour throwing scrunched receipts from my wallet at one of our cats. She seemed to have as much fun as we did. In other news, I will find out if I have diabetes on Monday. Woo. I think I'm just letting my hypochondria fly, but peace of mind doesn't cost much.

Saturday we're having a house re-warming (since our housemate moved out a few months ago) and C is making a big curry and I'm making sweets. It should be fun, just a couple of friends. Tomorrow my sister is coming to visit and it should be real nice then in the evening I shall vacuum and tidy and bake!

My hair is dirty and I'm going to wash it. Bonne nuit!

^ Another uncredited Tumblr find. Uncredited images, video and text on the internet is as annoying to me as bad spelling and grammar! Argh!

I'm glad the time stamp of my blogs sits at the bottom of each post so you don't obviously see that I usually write blogs at 4am. It's daylight savings' fault really...

I've recently introduced C to one of my all time favourite TV shows, a little 2-season Canadian show called 'Our Hero', about a teenage girl called Kale who makes zines (you can tell why I like it already). I actually bought the box set about 4 years ago with some money that my grandma gave me that was officially my 'inheritance' from my dad. It cost eighty dollars to buy and ship over here and when I emailed the official dvd release website to confirm overseas shipping, the person on the other end emailing me was actually one of the show's creators. Of course I was all like 'Omg, you made lyke the best sh0w of all tiiiime' at him. I've never met anybody who has seen this show before, so if you have you should definitely tell me. I tried to find some footage on Youtube, but I guess it was just too underground and too long ago, all I get is Heroes footage, which I'm not so interested in. They do, however, have a very cute website for Our Hero here. I can't help but make fun of the main character's gorgeous Canadian accent, all "oot" instead of out and "hoose" instead of house. Here are some really awful stills I took from the first episode that don't do the show justice at all;

















Of course, in the vein of all things ziney, today I went to the annual TINA zine fair, which was held on the second highest covered floor of the David Jones carpark. I decided to discard my initial feelings of anxiety and claustrophobia of being in a very small space with a low roof, hundreds of people, loud music and zines blowing everywhere and have a good time. I got some lovely goodies and helped save a whole table of zines (Bird In The Hand distro's zine desk infact) from being totally annihilated by wind. I was hoping the lady over counter would give me half price off the badge I was buying for my assistance but no luck! Ha. I saw this aaaaaaamazing purse for $22 by the awesome folk at Trashbags at one stall and considered spending my entire 'zine allowance' on it, but I just couldn't. Sadly they don't have any similar on their website. C offered, as he always does, to purchase it for me, but I said no. I also saw these aaaaaaaaamazing little purses made out of cassette tapes with zippers. So retro and shit! They were cute. I'm going to attempt to make one, and probably fail miserably :) I swear next year I'll have a stall (hopefully in conjunction with Paige?).

I acquired;

• I Am A Camera #11 by Vanessa Berry;
  
  
  
  
• A very cute lucky dip full of paper ephemera in an airmail envelope from a zinester I can't recall;
  
  
  
  
• A colour zine called Pioneering Mediocrity by Rhys McDonald
• A free zine by Nanoworks
• Two copies of this cute lobster postcard by these girls;
  
  
  
  
• A pack of amazing print cards for only $5 by Racket, they're all amazing but here are some I randomly selected. I think I might use some as mix cd covers or turn them into postcards;
  
  
• A cute badge made out of a page from a vintage book.
• The latest lovely edition of Epitaph For My Heart by Amanda;
  
  
  
• A cute little zine called 'I ♡ Poor Spelling and Bad Grammar" because I really don't and I could afford to learn to build up some tolerance;
  
  
  
  
• A tiny zine called 'Four Eyes For Life' by Tiny Paper Hearts which I think is gorgeous. I want to post pages of it, but I think it's probably disrespectful to the creator;
  
  
  
  
• These lovely envelopes for a dollar each;
  
  
  
  
• And a whole lot of other miscellanea I am too tired to scan.

I got a nice call from my sister tonight, although I had just woken up from a four-hour nap and I now can't really remember anything that was said.

Anyway. C insists on staying up while I stay up and deliriously write blogs, so I should let him rest.